Who
by Curimuch
Summary: Noel learns that being surrounded by familiar faces that don't remember him is lonelier than 700AF could've ever been. Not being remembered in an alternate world could actually lead to the happy end he fought so hard for. Maybe. Noel/ ?
1. Prologue: Chaos

**A/N: Final Fantasy XIII-2 is the perfect piece of media to practice my first attempt at present-tense writing. Hopefully others can give me pointers and advice as I go along. **

Prologue: Chaos

_(Tell everyone, this is the place where you belong.)_

He gasps, the quick shallow intake of air brings warmth to the empty chambers of his lungs. He springs forward, hands grip tight on a golden nail-like dagger. His vision is still dark, voices still echo in his mind, but somehow, he can see vibrations in the darkness. An outline being made—trees swaying.

_(Do you remember the touch of the wind on you?)_

Sounds of whistling wind and crashing waves clashing together like an out of tune video machine of Hope's still in the beta.

'Please excuse the quality.' He hears his voice, and it brings enough nostalgia to loosen his grip on his dagger and tilt his head.

"How can I be so deep within a paradox?" Frightening. He places a free hand on his forehead, not daring to let his weapon go no matter what. Instances like these are what makes his memories blur and slip away. As if he cast magic on himself, he feels a pulsing impact where his hand on his face was, falling over. "Aloeidai done this? Fully pulled me in this time—no... That wasn't what last happened. Hrrghnn.." He couldn't curl, the unstable world formatting around him would not allow it.

"Noel!"

"Who?"

"That's definitely Noel!"

"Don't try to carry him, stupid! Get Ms. Farron!"

Noel feels paralyzed.


	2. Clear

**A/N: I'm going to try to have a chapter up every day or two. The chapters get progressively longer as the 'set up' stabilizes. (The length is deliberate).**

Chapter 1: Clear

"Who?"

"Noel, Ms. Farron!"

"Did this strange man tell you strange stories?"

Noel felt his heart racing at the conversation he woke up to. Yeul all over again? The mental prison he was put under before?

"Regardless of all of these strange tales, he _is_ in need of some help. When he's all better, we adults will get him to talk-"

"Serah." Firm. Though his hands tremble a his sides when he sat up. She walks into the room, pass the curtains of leaves. She has a cute pout on her features, though Noel is sure she meant it to be look stern and intimidating. It is hard for him to not laugh, a fruitless effort of stifling it behind a shaky hand.

"Okay, mister. Your impishness is not welcomed, alright? Do not take mine, or anyone's kindness for granted."

"Meanie Ms. Farron—" He is desperate for this to be a nightmare gone dream. A charade.

"Yes, my students call me that sometimes." She states with no familiarity to him at all. Her arms cross as she huffs, "I'm going to have you detained at this rate."

"-Wait. Serah. You have a cat named Snow that Yuj given you. The other members of NORA are Labreau, Godot, Maqui, Snow, and you. New Bodhum was inspired by the old also on shore. Your other friends—they consist of Hope, Sazh, Vanille, Fang...and your older sister, Lightning!" He isn't aware of how his hands are still trembling. Where he feels the most panic—inside. Rapid heart beat and strained widening eyes. Serah has taken a step back, her hands over her chest, bottom lip bitten.

"Wh-who are you...?"

"Noel Kreiss, Serah." He swallows a large lump after his outburst.

"I...still...think you're strange—Godot!"

"Serah—I'll...go in willingly. There's no need for force..." She only nods at him as she waits for him to stand. He does, and she makes sure to keep a sizable distance between them.

"No funny business. No running from this point on, ka-"

"pish?" Still fighting for her closeness. She flinches and moves further away, he feels his chest tighten.

"Lightning is scarier than Godot ever could be."

"Shes very supremely powerful alongside Odin. I know." His blunt lines roll sentence after sentence. Stubborn, unyielding, and arrogantly cocky as always.

"You're not a very good spy, y'know."

"Even if I was, Lightning wouldn't know. She was with the grunt work before she bailed, with all due respect, Serah. Besides, look how young I am, gurl~."

"Looks mean _nothing,_ Mr. Kreiss!" What should be a terrifying experience in its entirety was lightened by his banter with the younger Farron. He smiles as he tilts his head and keeps his hands clasped in front of him like a prisoner.

"Are we going to the biggest construction in New Bodhum? The place uncleverly named 'Da Nora house'?"

"-Listen, you, stop talking." She snorts at his half grin and half lazy shrug in reply. "Smart ass..." His smile goes from half to wide. She turns around, hair whipping to the side. This was a good sign to Noel. It was so nostalgic, tapping into his frail humanity for familiarity. Serah is still the same ol Serah.

…

She...just doesn't remember.


	3. A free man is an empty man

**A/N: I liked this chapter too much to not upload it today with chapter 1. **

Chapter 2: A free man is an empty man

He shouldn't have, but when Serah put a simple lock on the door, he couldn't help but silently scold her for her simplicity by breaking the knob off with a single chop.

"You better not come out!" She yells from the other side of the closed but loose door.

"I'm not. Just showing you how silly you can be sometimes." He then places his hands on hips and pretended to be her, similar to how Hope done over Adam. 'Don't talk about me like you know me!,' he whispered in a higher voice.

…

The silence upsets him. It makes him miss her. Serah is but only two yards apart, but she feels so far away from him. Instead of sitting in a present chair, he sits on the floor with his back against a wall. His head hangs as his hair covers his face. A pathetic and heavy look. It's hard to be prideful at a time like this. Feels like a punishment for letting her die, but... in his mischievousness, the detail—_fine _detail that Lightning is truly, _really_ here slipped by him while teasing Serah.

"Noel." That very woman very coldly steps in. No longer in the feathery armor he came to know, but weird academy looking attire. Hat too. His head snaps up as he gives her his fullest, most hopeful attention. Her eyebrows crinkled after one had raised.

"Shi..." he mutters under his breath.

"Strip."

"—What."

"Do as I say, Noel."

"...What?" When she stepped closer in her naturally terrifying way, he unfastens his fabric belt, but then, it was his turn to raise a brow. She was the same frank and focused woman. However, this cold strict edge was new to him. It gave a new twist to how difficult it is to make her stagger or to distract her. Despite him being intimidated by her, eye contact remains as he stands. It is only broken when he takes the motions to remove his form fitting shirt.

"There we go." She cooly states. The amount of cool she exudes without effort makes it hard for him to joke even slightly. To him, she felt as unpredictable and in control like as the day he first met her in a potentially different life.

"Eh? 'There we' _what?_" He asks all without looking.

"Your l'cie brand—" Before she can continue speaking, he raises his voice over her.

"My _**what**_-"

She crosses her arms, suspicious and unbelieving. Something different from the Lightning he knew. "I-" She abruptly pats his chest, right over his heart, that is where it is. "It's white, like Fang's, but partially white. Instead of burnt, it looks frosted over... like it is thawing out...?" Then she looks at him entirely with her stroong hand still there. His ruggedness, his hair style, and from a little before the removal of the shirt; the outfit. "You remind me of her a lot. The clothes, the accent, but not as heavy...and from what Serah tells me, pretty arrogant."

"Snow said that before." Slightly inaccurate, but telling the complete truth gotten him at a snail's pace with a lot of pain. "I'm pulse born... it's really foggy from there."

"Oh really? She had cockiness of her own with the way she smirks and snorts at him.

"Really. Lightning, no point asking questions if you're going to be doubtful."

"Interrogation, _friend_," she retorts. "The more I ask you questions, the more materials I have to put together."

"I'm doubtful of _that_."

"Feeling's mutual." She brushes strands of her hair back as she leans on a different leg in sass. Then, as suddenly as before, she boldly places her hand over his l'cie brand again. The pulse he feels is nearly the same as the one by his head from earlier. Unlike before, where it was darker images like a radar, this time it is static and gray like a television with white noise. He sees the faces of Hope, Lightning, and himself. It changes—Flying cie'th? Raspatil? Serah smiling with tear stained cheeks.

Lightning gasps. Serah comes into the room and Noel's vision clears despite the bright violet light emerging from him. A crystal is in-between Lightning's hand and his chest. He drops to his rump as he weakly stares at what is called an eidolith. His soul crystallized and ripped out.

"Don't touch it, Serah!" Lightning quietly hisses.

"It looks like...a purple and wider version of Snow's."

"It's more rigid too—none the less...Isn't this what happens to _new_ l'cie?" Lightning muses aloud. She watches with a hawk's eye as Serah bends down to help him up and lean him toward the eidolith. "Noel, you must firmly grasp it within your hand. It'll practically kill you not to."

Noel grabs it—_snatches_ it when she mentions death. He feels an intense chill surge into him to a more soothing and manageable temperature. The light in the room ceases as he is settled to the ground by both women.

"What..."

"You're not of this time, yet, L'cie is new to you!"

"I—I'm not...you're ri-ight."

"Sis, he needs a break."

"Right." She closes the door and leans on it. I half want to run out and look for a fal'cie, but the other half wants to stay by him."

He has a weak chuckle. Somehow, in an odd way, this feels like acceptance. That he is finally in favor, slowly worming his way in. He now has a trump card to use against them for them to care about his existence.

A gambit.

~.~.~

"Noel, you need to tell me what did you see... So we can prevent you from becoming a cie'th." From the sheer power of his crystal that took over the house, he would turn into a real ugly one. On level with the undying—certainly.

"What happened to the doubt?" He still has a sour tang from before this.

"Look, why would you put yourself at a disadvantage? Unless you want to kill everyone like a sicko-"

"_**Never.**_" A button successfully pushed. His cheeks flush at her dominate expression, but shes right, and he's wrapped around her finger. He gives. "I saw you, Hope and I...battling winged hideous creatures with distorted human faces. Out in the plains, out in glittering constructions, everywhere. Then I saw...Serah, smiling with tears. That's all."

Serah's voice is timidly high and shakey as she asks, "why...do you know us?"

"Where do you come from?"

He feels a burn in his throat down to his chest when he nearly states the truth. ...He did hesitate, did feel it in his gut that he didn't want to talk about the time traveling. The dying world. Serah's final breathes in his arms. Failing her, failing himself, failing Lightning. Something he willingly wanted to forget. If becoming a L'cie, something more terrifying than death was the price for this, then so be it. A good price after failure, failure, failure, and all the _innocent_ spilt blood. Cie'th aren't very sentient anyway, right? It'd just be his corpse animated...right?

"Noel." His eyes are wide and shaking as Lightning's voice goes from one ear out the other. Serah places her hand on his shoulder—he jerks in fright. "You need to keep your cool. Keep your emotion in check. Focus. These brands have...a thing called a 'focus'. And with reason, Noel. Listen to me, you'll... You'll be fine."

He is unable to tell if Lightning is unsure or just not used to being sensitive.

"Sorry—I don't know where I'm from. And...I trust you... Please. Please, trust me."

"I don't have a choice." Cold.

Serah's dainty hand rubbing his tense shoulder makes up for Lightning's harsh no nonsense ways. In due time, he'll learn that in many ways, he is now getting a taste of his own medicine.

Lightning must be unsure.


	4. Fault

Chapter 3: Fault

When the Farron sisters left the room, Noel found himself reflecting; literally. Face to face with a mirror looking at his invasive L'cie brand. He didn't see it when it was 'frosted over', but now it was jet black on his chest. Despite not feeling too different health wise, it was still unsettling to have either way. He gets chills when he thinks back to Adam. An artificial Fal'cie that turned hundreds of people into Cie'th in an instant.

He places his hand over it to feel that it was a tattoo with quite some texture. It feels like a second layer of skin with its center having a...bump present? His thoughts flash back to the red center of all of those Cie'ths he fought with Serah. He quietly murmurs, "ah..." The door swings open and Noel turns toward it. "You look happy, Lightning," Noel greets sarcastically. He receives no verbal reply but presents himself to her regardless.

"About all this..." She trails off to focus on his mark again.

"I wanted to ask about when you met Odin, Lightning." Her eyes narrow at the question. "What happened to helping me out? Or rather, the choiceless trust?" He didn't have a shirt to be grabbed, so instead he was punched right in the L'cie mark. He grabs Lightning's wrist before it could be 'returned' to her for another assault on him. This woman is strangely more violent and ironically so. The other had to fight endlessly in a timeless realm, while this one, seemingly in a world of peace, was so cold and violent.

Lightning stares as he does, there was...something familiar there. Her eyebrows twitch, showing a moment of confusion before they furrow as she yanks her hand back. She finishes with haughty huff, it looks like she may turn to leave but she does not.

"I met him when I tried to abandon Hope—leave him to the wolves to die." Noel's eyes widen when he heard this. This surely had to be some kind of bizarre world. Hope was so fond of her, and Lightning had saved him too, a total random occurrence. "Eidolons appear when you're making a grave mistake, when you're _wrong_, falling into despair. Basically, to help you out when they think you deserve it, but punish you if not. You have to fight them." She turns her head away to hide her face in the guise of fixing loose hair. Hope always makes her tender, especially the memory that she always wasn't kind to him—an odd kind of regret. "Without Hope, who I viewed as a liability, I would've died to Odin." She huffs again, whipping her head back, arms crossed. "He did needed a ton of sharpening up, but he had a natural talent for magic, anyway."

Noel almost asked another question but had to laugh at Lightning's added statement. _Quick cover up... That's must've been where Hope gotten it from._

"It's a wonder that you all had Eidolons with those requirements."

"Our journey was very hard. It made me realize I wasn't as tough shit as I thought until the end." She places a hand on her covered sternum. "But I'm wrong again." Her expression hardens again. "My brand—it feels like you have something to do with it."

"Whoa—whoa!"

"For three years it wasn't even _there._ I was _normal._ Ever since yours glowed mine came back. Serah...Serah's better not be back or-" She aggressively approaches him as he places an arm in front of himself.

"I doubt that! My vision mostly included you and Hope! If anything, I believe we do something that ultimately helps her."

"How does slaying Cie'th have _**anything**_ to do with that?!"

"Serah told me her focus. She told me the journey you guys traveled, that she saw it through Snow. Serah has a very big heart. The biggest of humanity. She had a focus she made for herself, of salvation! Cie'th, undying, the stones... They don't ever find it unless through other l'cie, right? Maybe Etro wants us to help those thousands of soul move on!"

"Etro..." Lightning murmurs. She suddenly because distracted. Quizzical.

"...Does the name ring a bell for you?" He wanted to say 'we met through Goddess Etro'.

"It gives me dejavu and I hate that. Unsettling. Like you," she pokes his L'cie brand angrily. "All of you."

"Hah..." Funny she says 'all of you'. What with all the things that had gone on in time. "You and Serah...are descents of Etro." Only theory, but he speaks it anyway.

"Who in the name of _fuck_ is Etro?" Her voice is very aggressive, a territory has been breached.

"Goddess of humanity." He raises his hands up in defeat at another huff of the elder Farron's. "Serah has her eyes and essence! You have her strength and will!" He pumps his arm at the last statement, holds it in the air... then drops it in exasperation. This woman is very difficult unlike Serah.

"What. Next you're gonna tell me you're her angel or messenger or whatever, here to make Hope, Serah and I see the light? Tch. Please."

"Well, yes."

"Ugh." She begins to leave.

"Wait a second! Let me go out in the field! Most importantly, come with me. Let me show you the Etro script."

"I don't even know what the hell that is."

"You'll be able to read it, trust me. Come with me! There's nothing to lose in doing so!"

"My time." She walks, Noel follows.

"Time is meant to be spent in any and all ways. Don't take that for granted."

"Tch." She turns around threateningly once more. A stare down for several seconds. "-Serah?" She looks around, but no call back or little Serah in sight. Unusual. Lightning and Noel sprint at the same time. The renegade woman takes great offense to this. Turning around with fists balled before as she shouts, "back off!" It isn't a matter of simply backing off from her little sister but her too. And her friends. "It hasn't even been three hours; and with you around, _**everything**_ goes to shit!" Noel freezes and slowly, his shoulders scrunch with an injured look on his tired face. She closes her eyes before turning away and shouting "Serah!" She leaves with panicked haste. In the distance Noel can hear her. 'Have you seen Serah? What do you mean no?! Dammit! Don't be useless!"

He is still frozen. What Lightning said makes him think.

_I didn't want to hurt anyone._

All of those time lines. All of those mistakes. Misfortunes, all when he appeared. Every time.

"I still have that effect, huh..." His voice is weak and trembled. He nearly slides to the floor...but when he doesn't feel Lightning around, neither hear her, he finally moves toward the hills. Where he took Serah.

However long ago that was.

He has his mark covered behind his muscular ar, as he brushes through New Bodhum to the infrequently traveled 'short cuts'. He would love to take the long way, but he feels in his instincts he should not show his L'cie brand just yet. His eyes remain toward the ground scanning for his dagger. Memory told him that he only that and not its larger companion around.

_(Ah, everything looks shiny in the sun in a day of your new life.)_

His head snaps up at the nearly blinding glare. He squints his eyes as he runs toward it, not immediately realizing this was once where the crater of his was.

"Ah!"

"Ah...?" He blinks in confusion at the other voice. "Noel?"

"Serah?" He rushes over to see Serah looking up at him. The area was no longer scorched or broken apart with jagged stones. It is now a tropical slope.

"You look really confused." Serah muses.

"Ah—erm-that dagger. It belongs to me. D'you think I deserve it back?" He asks as he flashes her a grin. His grin widens when she giggles at him with her hand outstretched to return it to him. "Thank you...Serah."

She nods then turns around as she talks, "its something magical isn't it?"

"Not as far as I'm aware..." He replies while scratching the back of his head.

"It feels like a warm empathetic compass." Serah gingerly explains. With her hands behind her back, Noel could see the way her now thin and pale fingers twiddles sheepishly. "It feels like I was led here by it. Or maybe I'm just being strange." She chuckles sheepishly then turns around. Noel is smiling. Dejavu of his own back when she endlessly rambled to him for the first time. Except this time, it wasn't about Snow. "Ever since we moved her, I came to this spot. I always do when I don't feel okay because I feel so peaceful. Just this spot. Your dagger—it could've just been in the sun too long. Hehehee..."

Noel realizes he must've been staring too hard and flustered her. This in turn flusters him to turn away for a moment.

"I'm surprised sis let you go," Serah continued to trail on.

"Well, not really. She noticed you were gone and freaked. I went out to get my dagger..." Serah laughing confuses him. "What?"

"I-I should've known." She laughs her statement and runs past Noel.

"Known what?" He resists the urge to immediately follow.

Serah momentarily stops to turn around and reply, "I guess you don't know everything. That's relieving!" Then she ran off again.

_Not as quick as she used to be..._

Noel doesn't follow. He sits down where the gate used to be. There is no residual energy. No trace of a paradox or gate anywhere.

"What is going on …?"

**A/N: Writing from journal to text is awkward. So many pages in a notebook translates into 4-5 when typed. Ah well, can't be helped for a long time. Thank you for reviewing and following! Looking to have the next chapter up on Monday.**


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